


Twisted secret lives (the way you bat your eyes)

by Trojie



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Casual Sex, Crimes & Criminals, Crossdressing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-10
Updated: 2011-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes they work together, waking-side-up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twisted secret lives (the way you bat your eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> Not _quite_ genderfuck, but getting there. Casual relationship between Arthur and Eames. As with quite a lot of my A/E Inception fic, owes somewhat of its tone to the Queens of the Stone Age, in particular 'Skin on Skin'.

Sometimes they work together. It doesn't happen much - there aren't a lot of jobs that require both of their particular blends of talents. But it does happen, particularly when people are willing to pay for it. They usually know where to find each other - there aren't so many people in this line of work that you can afford to lose track of any of them. The one you lose track of today might be the one making you eat a bullet tomorrow.

That hasn't been Eames, yet.

Sometimes they work waking-side-up. There aren't a lot of differences anyway, except in the strange inflexibility of Eames's skin, the endlessness of the world with no loops to bound it, the danger of forgetting and relying on your totem, or that one last bullet, to show you the way out.

So far, Arthur hasn't forgotten.

Eames does drag as well as he forges women - wholehearted and convincing and enjoying it. Arthur thinks he can find bits of the truth of Eames in the hair on his thighs, above his stockings, that he doesn't bother to shave, and the snapped elastic of his hairnet under the wig; in the lube he keeps in his makeup bag and the obvious pink of the shirts he picks out when he's meeting people. The way he orders pink gin, drawls 'right-oh', admires a good pair of shoes as much as a good pair of legs and a good isoceles shooter's stance more than either of them.

He's taking his wig off, balancing on one heel and scratching at his calf muscle with the other (which is ruining his stockings), when he says, 'Why haven't you kissed me yet?' He says it like he's been expecting it more than he's wanting it, but he's an actor. If he says it at all, that means he wants it. Which means Arthur's won.

The attraction of this is that it's infrequent, it's random, it's mutual, it's clean, and it's safe. Good list, yeah?

The attraction of _Eames_ is the reflections in the mirror, the way he can hike a couture gown up around his hips and fuck Arthur into the wall, and it's the same whether he's got a cock or a cunt hiding under there. The way he wears a suit as if it fits him perfectly, and the only reason it maybe stretches a bit across the shoulders is that he's in the wrong body just at this second. The way the real Eames always seems to be three layers deeper than whichever layer you're on. The way he's everything and nothing at the same time, where Arthur is always the same someone, even though he's been told he has facets (or slapped and told he's two-faced) often enough. Arthur's facets (or faces) are all of the one person. Eames is always plain as day, but never the same twice in a row.

Eames is down to his slip, shoes kicked somewhere across the hotel room where he won't be bothered to find them tomorrow morning. He makes his way to where Arthur is peering beyond the net curtains, trying to see who pulls into the hotel carpark, wondering if they've been followed. In his stocking-feet (hah) Eames is an inch shorter than Arthur, which Arthur only ever remembers when they're standing next to each other.

'Did you get what you need?' asks Eames, not bothering to ask his first question again. Priorities. Arthur reaches across and runs his thumb over Eames's lower lip, noting how the lipstick smudges.

'Yeah, I got plenty. You?' Arthur asks in return, thinking of photos taken for the purpose of proof and blackmail, and the notes about the target's companions he's memorised. Not all their jobs are as highminded as the one they did on Fischer. Sometimes crime is just crime, dirty and sordid, with cheap lipstick smears and all.

Eames flourishes a piece of paper like it's the queen in a Find the Lady game. 'Phone number, address, and open invitation to drop round on Fridays, when the missus is out. Just let me know when you want the place searched.'

Arthur's hand is still on Eames's face, and he lets his fingers slide further up to catch under Eames's jaw, which is when he kisses him.

Eames will go back to the mark and steal his livelihood from under his nose and fuck him like a champ afterwards, and the mark, an unhappily-married idiot with a skirt fetish, will think Eames is a drag queen, probably a junkie, definitely someone trapped in the wrong body, and will feel superior, which is half of why he won't notice his drawers have been rifled and his safe cracked. And he will have missed the point.

Because Eames could never be trapped in the wrong body. There is no wrong body. Arthur understands that.


End file.
